Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.
He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.
(Via Zombie Pop.)
The sick thing is that I can almost sympathize with this guy.
I agree, for instance, that an ecologically tolerable Earth is unlikely unless extreme measures are taken. To be sure, the sudden demise of 90% of the world's human population would help even the balance, minimizing climate disaster and cleansing the oceans and atmosphere of toxins.
The chorus of voices calling for deliberate dieback is likely to gain a more receptive audience as humanity weathers the new century's inevitable shortages and disasters. Poisoned and weary (and more than likely rattled by the novel excesses of 21st century warfare), many of us may opt for the siren call of a "12 Monkeys"-style virus.
But by that time some of us will have grasped alternatives that allow for an altogether different future. We're quietly entering an era of space elevators and laser-propelled interplanetary craft. With cunning, we can harvest the light of the Sun and transmit its bounty from geosynchronous orbit. Astronauts can begin mining the Moon and passing asteroids for the very materials so desperately needed on the resource-starved Earth.
More portentously, the first humans will begin the arduous -- but essential -- migration to space, testing the waters for their successors.
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